The Red, White, and Green

Photo via Flickr: h3nro

Of the five wacky going-green tips I offered up on HuffPost last week, none has evoked as much of an “ick” response as #2: Stop using shampoo.

As it turns out, the friend who originally offered up that tip wrote me to say that she has since abandoned her efforts. Evidently, it’s a three-month adjustment period, and she just couldn’t stand looking like a greasy rat anymore. Her compromise, since she didn’t want to have to start buying plastic bottles of shampoo again? The shampoo bar.

I’m intrigued. The thing that’s always bothered me about “eco-friendly” shampoos is that although the formulations themselves are kinder to our bodies and our waterways, there’s no getting around that plastic bottle. Even if the bottle is made from recycled materials and is itself recyclable, there’s still an energy cost associated with both of those processes, and the fact remains that a whopping 73 percent of HDPE bottles are not recycled. (HDPE, also known as #2 plastic, is what’s most commonly used for shampoo bottles.)

It’s one of the reasons I use bar soap instead of body wash, which I think is just plain wasteful (my husband, who adores the scrubbing action of the body wash/mesh puff combo, strongly disagrees). So why not shampoo in bar form? I’m excited to test it out. Here are a few that look tempting:

Burts Bees Rosemary Mint Shampoo Bar
I’m big a fan of the Burts Bees bottled shampoos, which consistently have super low scores on the EWG’s Cosmetics Database (a low score is what you want; it means the ingredients pose little to no hazard to your health). Did I mention they smell fabulous, too? Rosemary mint sounds like the perfect scalp tingler to wake me up on those ultra-groggy mornings.

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Lush Hard Water Shampoo Bar
Evidently Lush, that chain of handmade soap stores I’ve seen in malls everywhere yet have always been intrigued as to how they stay in business (I’ll admit, I’ve never been in one), has been making solid shampoo since the beginning. There’s an unbelievable variety of shampoo bars on their website, but I really want to try out this version, since my hair has never been the same since moving to hard water Los Angeles.

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J.R. Liggetts Old-Fashioned Bar Shampoo
Designed for chemically and allergy sensitive people, these 100 percent vegetable oil formulation shampoos don’t strip the natural oils from your hair, so supposedly there’s no need for conditioner. And what can I say? I’m a sucker for anything that says “old-fashioned.” Each bar offers the same amount of washes as a 24 oz. bottle of shampoo.

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Stay tuned to hear how my foray into bar shampoo turns out. And if you already have a bar shampoo you use and love, please post about it in the comments below!

–Jennifer Grayson

Do this now: You may not be ready to give up your Pantene Sleek and Shine, but consider switching from bottles of body wash to bar soap. It’s pretty painless, and you’ll help reduce the more than 2 billion tons of HDPE bottles sent to the landfills each year.

Related posts:
Avoiding bottled water at the airport
Product review: Skin Free

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